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(upbeat music) - Drive Time Devotions is a Saddleback Church podcast. We want to
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com for locations and service times in your area. Please visit us this weekend.
- This is day two together of our look through Second Timothy chapter four, this
great chapter of last words of Paul to his son in the faith Timothy, but also to
you and I.

And he started out yesterday saying, you need to preach the word in season and
out of season. Anytime, let people know the good news of what God's done to you
and in you. In verses three and four, he tells us why it's so important that you
let people know the good news as soon as you can.

Verses three and four, Paul says, for the time will come when men will not put
up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather
around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to
hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and they'll turn aside to
myths.

Yesterday, as we talked, we focused on the fact that in season and out of season
were to preach the word. If you wait too long, these verses tell us, verse three
tells us that if you wait too long, the time doesn't become right. The
opportunity is actually lost.

People will not put up with the soundness of God's truth. Instead, to suit their
own desires, they're going to try to find a teacher that, and what a picture this
is, that says what their itching ears want to hear. My ears itch to hear that
I'm okay even in my sin.

I can be prideful, it's not going to hurt me. I can just get what I want. Doesn't
matter how much I hurt other people.

The truth about those who listen to false truth is right here for everyone to
see in these verses. The power behind false teaching is selfishness. Now
remember, last week we talked about these verses as we talked about signs that
precede the end times.

The increase of personal evil we talked about in chapter three last week.
Terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves and lovers
of money.

But we also talked about these verses, apostasy. People will fall away from
God's truth because the truth of the matter is it's always been about them. Even
being at church, even picking up a Bible, it's just been about them.

Second Timothy four, three, this verse in the message paraphrase says, you're
going to find out that there will be times when people will have no stomach for
solid teaching but will fill up on spiritual junk food. Catchy opinions that
tickle their fancy. Or as we just read, itching ears.

As I read these verses, I have to realize they're not just about other people.
Itching ears. People who are listening to teaching just to please themselves.

How do I make sure that I don't become this kind of person? The teaching I
listen to is just to affirm what I'm already doing. It's just to sort of give
authorization to the way I've already decided to live my life.

Instead of listening to the truth, I'm just listening for affirmation. But the
affirmation is of a lie. And it's going to send me down.

Oh, it's going to send me down. How do I make sure that I'm not the kind of
person who listens with itching ears? Verse five answers that.

Verse five says, but you keep your head in all situations. Endure hardship. Do
the work of an evangelist.

Discharge all the duties of your ministry. Itching ears, they appeal to our
selfishness. They say, oh, just sit back.

Do nothing. Just enjoy God's blessings. They're just for you.

God just wants to make you happy. That God's whole purpose of existence is just
to make you happy. As if life in the universe were centered on you.

That's what our itching ears like to hear. And Paul, in one sense, gives the
alternative here as he talks to Timothy about what to do to oppose these itching
ears. He says four things.

You keep your head. You endure hardship. You do the work of an evangelist.

You discharge the duties that God has given you. What's the alternative? You
keep your head.

Our ears itch to hear that we should just lose ourselves to our emotions.
Whatever I feel like doing, it's okay to do. If you feel like doing it, God gave
you that emotion, so it's no problem with doing it.

You feel like cheating this person in a business. You feel like having an
affair. You feel like not serving God anymore.

No problem. Just follow your feelings. That's what our lazy itching ears want to
hear.

And Paul says instead of that, keep your head. Let God's truth come into your
life. And don't let emotions begin to guide your life.

The person whose life is guided by their emotions is like a runaway train. It's
going faster and faster maybe, but it's heading towards a disaster. It's heading
toward a crash.

So you keep your head. You let God's truth speak into your life instead of just
what our itching ears want to hear. He says in these verses, endure hardship.

Our itching ears want to hear there's some possibility of no trouble in this
life. There's all kinds of false teaching about this. False teaching related to
money.

False teaching related to circumstances. No trouble in this life. If you'll just
truly have faith in Jesus Christ, you will never be sick.

You'll never have to face a need in your life. You'll always be rich. Absolutely
false.

How do I know it's false? Jesus, you look at the life of Jesus. Paul, you look
at the life of Paul.

Paul faced sickness. He prayed, "God, remove this sickness from me. " And God
said, "No, I'm going to leave this one in your life 'cause I want it to teach you
that my grace is sufficient for you.

" Jesus, he had nowhere to lay his head. Jesus Christ, he fed his disciples from
the fields sometime because they had no food, but they were right in the center
of God's will. Our itching ears want to hear there's the possibility of a life
on this planet Earth of no trouble.

That's impossible. This is an imperfect place. We're headed for heaven, a
perfect place.

So don't let that get ahold of you. Paul said, "Instead of that, endure
hardship. " You're going to have some hardships in this life.

God's going to give you the strength to endure them. Choose to do that instead,
instead of looking for this perfect life. That's how you counter what our
itching ears want to hear.

Third thing that he says is you do the work. Do the work of an evangelist. You
know what my itching ears want to hear?

Others are created to serve me. That's why other people are put on this planet.
I am here to be served, but I'm not.

The Bible says that Jesus Christ came not to be served, but instead to serve,
and I'm to follow him. So Paul says, "Do the work that God's given you to do. "
And that work is to serve others.

Timothy's work was evangelist. That means the work of telling the good news. He
may have a different kind of work, but what work has God given you to do?

What work of serving others? We do work not just to gain things for ourselves,
not to just get an early retirement. We work in order to serve others.

Our itching ears want to hear let others serve you. The way to counter that is
to realize God's put me in this world to serve others. That's where the joy is.

You see, if you follow your itching ears, it seems at the beginning that you're
getting what you want, but in the end, it all falls apart in your hands. All
falls apart in your life. And for too many people, it all falls apart in their
eternity, 'cause they made it just about them.

What's the alternative to these itching ears? You keep your head, you endure
hardship, you do the work, and then he says you discharge the duties that God
has given in your life. Our itching ears want to hear you never have to do
anything unpleasant in this life.

Let somebody else do that. The truth of the matter is there are duties that I
have in life, things that I may not want to do that God has given me to do.
Jesus didn't want to go to a cross, but he went because he loves me.

That is the ultimate sacrifice. And God has sacrifices for me to make. They're
not the ultimate sacrifice many times of going to the cross, they're just the
daily, simple sacrifice of taking the time to notice somebody else's need when I
really am so tired I just want to think about myself.

Or the daily, simple sacrifice of sitting down to talk to one of my kids when I
could just say nah and just keep watching that TV show. The daily, simple
sacrifice of realizing that God has put me on this planet to relate to other
people and many times in relationships I have to sacrifice myself in order to
love another person. What's God calling you to do right now?

Maybe like I, like all of us, the itching ears, you've been scratching them a
little bit too much recently. You've been starting to buy into this idea that
it's about you and following your emotions and a life of no trouble and others
are here to serve me and no unpleasantness in this life. How about the
alternative?

The strength that God can give you to be the servant that makes a difference in
this world. Looking forward to the eternity that he has for you. Let's pray
together.

Lord, I'll admit it, we all have to admit it, we face pride and there's
something in us that would love for other people to serve us. But Lord, if we
follow that path, at the end of that, it might seem good at the beginning but at
the end of that, it's disaster. That's not why you put us here.

That's not the kind of life that you have for us to lead. Lord, we want to live
the kind of life that makes a difference. So instead of just scratching an
itching ear, I pray that we would listen to the truth and God, that we would
know that you will give us the wisdom to keep our head in all situations.

That God, you will give us the grace to endure hardship. You'll give us the
power to do the work that you've set in front of us. And God, you will give us
the patience to do things that we may not want to do in that moment but you've
given us to do.

Lord, help us to realize that you put us on this planet for a purpose and that
purpose is not us, it's you. It's letting people see who you are. Use us for
that purpose, we pray, in your name, amen.

Don't miss tomorrow. Tomorrow, we're going to be looking together at Paul's
powerful, his personal expression of deep hope.